1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fender rearview mirror among door sideview mirrors for an automotive vehicle, and more particularly to a fender rearview mirror which can be mounted later to a portion close to a front side on a side portion of a bonnet.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The rearview mirrors for a vehicle of a type of an automotive vehicle include a fender rearview mirror and a door sideview mirror (a side mirror). The fender rearview mirror is provided so as to protrude over each of right and left fenders of the vehicle, and in Japan, the fender mirror was previously obligated to be mounted. On the contrary, in U.S.A and a part of Europe, the door mirror has been obligated to be mounted to doors on both sides of a driver's seat.
However, recently, in Japan, the door sideview mirror has been allowed and most of the vehicle use the door sideview mirror now. This is because the range of car design has been widened in accordance with a development of a technology and the automotive vehicle has been demanded mostly by young generation. Accordingly, it is considered that preference for a smart design by younger generations has caused increase mounting the door sideview mirror.
However, not that the door mirror is free from problems in view of driving the automotive vehicle. That is, in the case of the automotive vehicle equipped with the fender rearview mirror, the driver can only slightly moves his or her eyes rightward or leftward while carefully watching a forward direction, whereby the driver can easily and rapidly recognize a state of a backward direction owing to the fender rearview mirror. Accordingly, the driver can again drive the automotive vehicle carefully watching the forward direction by slightly moving his or her eyes forward.
On the contrary, in the case of the automotive vehicle equipped with door sideview mirrors, the driver can view the backward direction by the door mirror only by widely moving his or her heads rightward and leftward when carefully watching the forward direction. In particular, in order to confirm the backward left direction using the left door sideview mirror, a driver sitting on the driver's seat in a right-handle vehicle cannot view the backward direction unless he turns left his head facing the front and turns his eyes about 80 degrees.
Accordingly, in the vehicle equipped with door sideview mirror, in comparison with the vehicle equipped with the fender rearview mirrors, watching forward carefully is interrupted particularly when viewing the rearward direction, and the forward view disappears from his or her sight. Further, when returning to carefully watching the forward after confirming the rearward direction, it takes slightly longer than in the vehicle having the fender mirrors. Such are important particularly when the automotive vehicle is running at a high speed, and it is very dangerous that interruption in carefully watching the forward direction is caused even it is for a moment, so that there is a possibility of a rear-end collision and a contact accident.
Further, it has often been experienced while the automotive vehicle along a narrow road that a fender rearview mirror helps to show a width of the automotive vehicle so that the driver may drive the automotive vehicle while keeping the fender rearview mirrors not coming into contact with obstacles on both sides as if such fender rearview mirrors function like "cat's whiskers". However, the door sideview mirror can not serve such function thus it is hard to drive.
Further, since the door sideview mirrors are attached to the doors on both sides, the door sideview mirrors largely protrude on the both sides of a vehicle body, so that the door sideview mirrors may be brought into contact with pedestrian, or an automotive vehicle running in the opposite direction and the other objects when passing through the narrow road or the like, thereby injuring pedestrian and giving a damage to the objects. Further, there is a case that an angle of the mirror has come to be changed.
Some buyers of the automotive vehicle pay more attention to a safety rather than the design and refined design during the driving, and select the conventional vehicle having the fender rearview mirror in place of the automotive vehicle having the door sideview mirror. This is considered a proper selection particularly for a beginner and a person who is less confident in his capability of driving the automotive vehicle. Considering safe driving it is a matter of course that most of taxies generally use the fender rearview mirror type of the automotive vehicles in place of the door sideview mirror type of the automotive vehicles.
As mentioned above, although the automotive vehicle using the fender rearview mirror is required, most of the automotive vehicles recently use the door sideview mirror and the number of the automotive vehicles using the fender rearview mirror is small, and in some models of automotive vehicles, they all use the door sideview mirror.